Women’s Rights Are Human Rights: An Exhibit of Selected Works by Jacob Landau

Monmouth University Galleries opens an exhibition of works exploring the theme of justice for women by American artist, humanist, and teacher Jacob Landau.

 

Born in Philadelphia in 1917, Jacob Landau launched his career as an illustrator, winning national prizes at age 16 and a scholarship to the Philadelphia College of Art. He had over sixty one-person shows and was the recipient of many awards, including Tiffany, Guggenheim and National Arts Council grants. 

 

Landau’s art, devoted to the “advocacy of the human,” which entails “revelation of the tragic” and “hope of transcendence,” embodies a vision of justice for women. Powerfully and subtly erasing inherited gender boundaries, it triumphs. In his watercolor AS ABOVE  SO BELOW he gives us an unforgettable vision of the “patterned energy” that is the just relation between sexes. We see masculine “incompleteness” and feminine “imperfection” in balanced unity. The man below and the woman above, declaring together: “I and thou we create each other.” And by this creation of the human imagination we are convinced of its truth. 

 

The exhibition features a selection of twelve pieces. All works are from Monmouth University’s extensive collection of Jacob Landau’s work, comprising over 300 prints, drawings and paintings. The collection was gifted to Monmouth University in 2008 by the Jacob Landau Institute of Roosevelt, NJ. This exhibit is co-sponsored by the Jewish Culture Studies Program and the Honors School of Monmouth University.